Tom felt as if he'd frozen in place. He'd thrown the box with the remaining camera behind some plastic bushes at the edge. He hoped he'd managed it before Dire saw it. He must have managed it, because Dire hadn't said anything about the box, just challenged their right to be there and announced that he was planning to kill Rafiel.
Stunned at the idea, Tom started to speak, but nothing came out of his mouth. It seemed to him that this was a duel. At least Dire had challenged Rafiel to a duel, challenged him to shift. If the intent were only to kill Rafiel, why not kill him as a human, without bothering with the lion form?
Except, of course, that Dire was a sadist. And the lion would, of course, provide him with a better fight, he thought, as lion and dire wolf stood facing each other, in this incongruous setting—tanks bubbled on either side, fish swam looking incuriously onto the scene. And Tom retreated until his back was against the concrete wall, while his brain worked feverishly.
His first thought—that Dire was doing this to gratify his sadistic impulses—was confirmed when, instead of going for the jugular, the huge prehistoric beast jumped at Rafiel and grabbed him by the scruff, much as a mother cat grabbing a baby. Only, it then lifted him off the ground and shook him, and threw him, sending him sprawling against one of the tanks.
For a moment, Tom, heart thumping at his throat, thought that Rafiel was already dead—that the dire wolf had broken his neck with that shake and toss. He heard something like a hiss come out of his mouth, and he realized what was about to happen. As he pulled off his shirt and dropped his pants—barely ahead of the process already twisting his limbs and covering his skin in green scales—he thought that he didn't want to fight the dire wolf. As ill-matched as Rafiel was against Dire, Tom was no better. He remembered the fight in the parking lot. He remembered that the dire wolf had almost killed him then. Why should now be any different?
But Rafiel was the closest thing he had to a best friend. If Tom stood by and watched the dire wolf finish Rafiel off in order to blame him for the deaths of hundreds of newborn shifters, just a few months ago, Tom would never be able to live with himself. Nor—he thought, ruefully, as his body contorted, in painful acrobatics, bending and twisting in a way it wasn't meant to, and as wings extruded from his back—would Kyrie want to live with him.
Dire was concentrating on Rafiel and hadn't seemed to notice Tom's shift, yet. Dire had swung the lion again, this time against the piranha tank. Tom flung himself into the fight, blindly. In the tight confines of the aquarium building, flying was no advantage, but he flung himself, aided by his wings, at the dire wolf and bit deep into what he could grab, which happened to be an ear, while letting out an ear-splitting hiss-roar that translated all his anger and frustration at this unreasonable ancient creature.
The dire wolf looked shocked—he turned a bloodied muzzle towards Tom, his eyes opened to their utmost in complete surprise. And Tom, instinct-driven, slashed his paw across the face, claws raking the eyes. Blood spurted. The dire wolf screamed. And the part of Tom that remained very much human was aware that this was a momentary advantage. The creature would recover. Eventually it would regrow its eyes. Until then, it might very well be able to look through their eyes. He couldn't allow it time to recover.
Leaping across the room, he grabbed Rafiel by the scruff even as Rafiel, dizzy and battle-mad tried to grab at him. But grabbing the scruff seemed to paralyze him, and Tom—fairly sure that in normal circumstances he'd have a hard time lifting Rafiel and trying to hold as gently as possible so he didn't wound Rafiel more—ran down the stairs with his friend held between his teeth.
Down the stairs and at a run through the aquarium—was that a Japanese man hiding in the shadows? and had he winked at Tom?—and turning sharply left, down a narrow corridor between tanks and . . .
Tom hit the exterior door with his full body weight. As he hit, he thought Dire might have locked it, but the door was already opening, letting them out into the cold air, where Tom dropped Rafiel and concentrated on changing. The dragon argued that Rafiel would make a really good protein snack, but Tom forced his limbs to shift, decontort. Before he could fully form words, he said, "Now, Rafiel, shift." The words came out half roar, half hiss, with only the barest vocalization behind them. And then Tom's eyes cleared and he realized Rafiel was already human, trying to walk to the car on a leg that bent the wrong way.
"Your keys?" Tom said.
Rafiel looked at him, his eyes full of pain, but reached for a bracelet at his wrist—metal but of the sort of links that stretched, so that it stayed with him through his shifts. He pulled the key and handed it to Tom, who opened the car, climbed in, and flung the passenger door open, just in time for Rafiel to climb in. He saw Dire's car parked next to them.
"Drive, drive, drive," Rafiel said. And Tom was driving, as fast as he knew how, down the still-half-iced streets, breathing deeply, telling himself that residual panic didn't justify shifting, that he would not—could not—shift. He tasted Rafiel's blood in his mouth, from the wounds the dire wolf had made at the back of Rafiel's neck, and it didn't help him keep control. Not at all.
It was a while—and Tom had no clue where he was, having driven more or less blindly—before Rafiel said, softly, "Thank you."
"What?" Tom asked, hearing his own voice ill-humored and combative. "Why?"
"Well . . . you . . . saved my life."
"As opposed to just letting you die? What do you think I am?"
"Brave. I know that creature scares the living daylights out of me. I don't know if I'd be able to make myself intervene in a fight between him and you."
"Don't worry about it," Tom said, hoping his dismissive tone would stop the conversation. He'd never learned to take compliments, and he wasn't ready for gratitude for doing what he had to do—what was clearly required of him as a human being. He just wanted to get back to the bed-and-breakfast and have a shower and—
"Damn," he said.
"What?"
"I left my boots in the aquarium."